Reehan's Blog

Developer James Coglan has created Fargo, a small experimental programming language for a asynchronous systems in JavaScript. It works in both Node.js and in browsers. Fargo is a modified version of Scheme, a dialect of LISP.

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One of the items brought up this week at UDS Budapest was about providing OpenGL / OpenGL ES support for QEMU guests. The need for OpenGL ES 2.0 support in QEMU guests has come up since it's used in emulating Maemo / MeeGo for development environments. This would also make it possible to use Canonical's Unity desktop in a virtualized environment...

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Thursday, 12 May 2011 00:00 OStatic

In conjunction with the Google I/O conference this week, Google held its launch event for the long awaited Chrome OS, the company's cloud-centric operating system. Among the announcements, Google said it is working with Samsung and Acer on Chrome OS laptops that will be available June 15, and Google will be pushing subscription plans for using its cloud services and cloud-based apps with the laptops. Google co-founder Sergey Brin was quoted as saying that Microsoft's Windows OS is "torturing users," but while nearly everything that Google rolls out meets with a full volume of welcome, there are many questions to ask about the company's Chrome OS strategy.

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SimplyMEPIS 11.0, a new version of the user-friendly, Debian-based distribution featuring the KDE desktop, has been released: "Warren Woodford is pleased to announce the release of SimplyMEPIS 11, the latest version of the renowned SimplyMEPIS Linux operating system that is designed to be easy to install, easy to....

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Yesterday Peter Eckersly posted at eff.org about the EFF's coming Open Wireless Movement. Here's what he had to say:

If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find.

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Quanta has received OEM orders from Amazon.com to build its much-rumored Android tablet, expected to sell in quantities of 700,000 to 800,000 units per month, DigiTimes claims. The tablet is said to use Fringe Field Switching display technology from E Ink -- presumably a version of E Ink's Triton color e-reader display....

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Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme
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Last edited 04/28/2011

The new Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) has just been released. This guide shows how you can upgrade your Ubuntu 10.10 desktop and server installations to Ubuntu 11.04.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

Start the Update Manager (System > Administration > Update Manager):

The Update Manager should show that a new distribution release (11.04) is available. Click on the Upgrade button to start the distribution upgrade:

 A window with the release notes for 11.04 comes up. Click on Upgrade again:

 The upgrade tool is now being downloaded. Afterwards, type in your password:

 The upgrade is being prepared:

 Click on Start Upgrade to finally begin with the upgrade process:

 The upgrade packages are now being downloaded...

 ... and installed. This can take some time, so please be patient.

 At the end of the upgrade process, you should remove obsolete packages:

 

The system needs to be rebooted to complete the upgrade, therefore click on Restart Now:

 When you log in, Ubuntu 11.04 will by default start the new Unity desktop which requires that your hardware supports 3D acceleration. If it doesn't, you can choose the Ubuntu Classic desktop at the login screen instead:

 After the reboot, you can use your new Ubuntu 11.04 desktop (because I used a virtual machine for this tutorial, the system has no 3D support, that's why you see the Ubuntu Classic desktop in the screenshot below):

 ow To Upgrade Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) To 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) (Desktop & Server) - Page 2

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While the final version of digiKam 2.0.0 has been pushed back to late July, the latest beta shows progress towards its completion with a new export tool and fixes for features added in earlier betas

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This howto will guide you to set up a LinOTP standalone one time password authentication backend on your Linux machine. This enables you to add two factor authentication with one time passwords to your desktop login.

LinOTP is a modular OTP (one time password) solution, that supports many different OTP tokens. LinOTP is written in python, based on pylons and apache. It comes as open source licensed under the AGPLv3. Additional functionalities, maintenance and support can be licensed in an Enterprise Edition.

This howto should run on Ubuntu 10.10 and Debian Squeeze.

You can either download the necessary packages from the LinOTP website or you can add the online repository to your repositories and install them with apt-get.

This Howto will use the second way to install the software.

First you need to add the GPG key, that was used to sign the packages:

wget http://linotp.org/apt/LSE\ LinOTP2\ Packaging\ linotp2@lsexperts.de\ \(0xF86258E5\)\ pub.as
sudo apt-key add http://linotp.org/apt/LSE\ LinOTP2\ Packaging\ linotp2@lsexperts.de\ \(0xF86258E5\)\ pub.asc

Then add the repository to your system:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://linotp.org/apt/ubuntu lucid linotp2ce"

Now you can install the LinOTP server, the management client and the PAM module:

sudo apt-get install linotp linotpuseridresolver libpam-linotp linotpadminclientce

When installing the linotp package you are asked several questions:

Do you want to run LinOTP 2 via Apache2? -> Yes
Enter admin password for the new LinOTP admin account. -> think of one
Do you want to create a self signed ceritficate? -> Yes
What SQL database do you want to use for the token database? -> Mysql
database hostname: -> localhost
Name of Token database -> LinOTP2
database user -> linotp2
database users password: -> think of one
Enter MySQL root password
Do you want to create the tables: -> yes

During the installation the encryption key /etc/linotp2/encKey will be created. Be sure to also enter the MySQL root password, so the database will be created, too.

Now you got two possibilities to manage the LinOTP server and OTP tokens. You can either use the command line client linotpadmin.py or the web interface located at

https://localhost/manage

Please note: If you got and "internal server error" take a look at /var/log/apache2/error.log. It could be, that the access rights of the directory /var/log/linotp are not right. Also the whole directory /etc/linotp2 needs to be owned by the user linotp.

LinOTP reads users by so called UserIdResolvers. The APGLv3 version comes with the PasswdUserIdResolver, that can be used to read users from flat files like the /etc/passwd. You can also create a new file that contains the users, as long as you stick to the passwd format.

The Enterprise Edition also provides Resolvers for users located in LDAP and SQL databases.

You may use the management web ui or the command line client to setup your LinOTP server. You need to configure a UserIdResolver and a default realm. You may do this by issuing the following commands:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setresolver --resolver=defaultPW --rtype=FILE --rf_file=/etc/passwd

That reads the users from the /etc/passwd file. You will get a JSON feedback like this:

{ u'status': True,....}

Now you need to add this resolver to your default realm:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setrealm --realm=defrealm --resolver=useridresolver.PasswdIdResolver.IdResolver.defaultPW
linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setdefaultrealm --realm=defrealm

You can either check it in the web ui or issue the command:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=listuser

You should see the list of your users. Now you are ready to assign tokens to your user.

You may want to enroll an OTP token, now. In this example we enroll an motp token (you could also enroll an OATH Token or a Google authenticator) on our mobile phone. Download the app from http://motp.sourceforge.net and install it on your phone. You may initialize the token by entering 0000 as PIN on the phone. An init-secret will be displayed.

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=inittoken --user=cornelius --type=motp --otpkey=860e2e9bf9d50665 --serial=1 --otppin=1234

This means, that you generated an mOTP token that gets assigned to the user "cornelius". The otpkey is the init-secret that was displayed on your phone. You may choose a serial (serial number) as you like to. The otppin is the PIN you will enter on the phone to generate an otp value.

Optionally you may set an OTP PIN, which is a fixed password part, that you need to enter in front (depending on the parameter PrependPIN) of the OTP value:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=set --pin=Password --serial=1

Alternatively you can use the management web interface, to enroll the token.

Now you are ready to generate your first OTP value! Go to the portal site:

https://localhost/auth/index

and enter your username and as password the OTP PIN you set and the otp value you generated with your phone. If you fail to authenticate, you might mistyped the init secret or the time of your phone might be out of sync.

Now we will setup PAM to enable you to authenticate to your desktop. The security module /lib/security/pam_linotp.so was installed to your system. You may now set up otp authentication. We choose to do it modular:

cp /etc/pam.d/common-auth /etc/pam.d/common-linotp

In /etc/pam.d/common-linotp change the line:

auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure

to

auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_linotp.so debug nosslhostnameverify nosslcertverify url=https://localhost/validate/simplecheck realm=defrealm resConf=defaultPW

Please note, that when using "debug" option, many many information - also the password! - will be written to the auth.log.

You may now use the common-linotp in any PAM configuration instead of common-auth, where you like to. I.e. you may change the line in /etc/pam.d/gdm:

@include common-auth

to

@include common-linotp

Now you will need to authenticate with OTP to your Gnome desktop! Note that you will also need to change /etc/pam.d/gnome-screensaver if you also want to unlock the desktop using OTP. You will not be asked for "Password" anymore but for "Your OTP".

If you fail to authenticate you may also take a look into /var/log/auth.log.

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Open source solutions vendor Red Hat has announced the dates for its eighth annual Red Hat Summit and JBoss World. The 2012 events will take place in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center

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This tutorial shows how to install VMware Tools onto pfsense v1.2.3 which is operated by the FreeBSD OS. It took me days to figure out how to do it, especially with lack of a complete guide in the Internet.

To install such a system you will need the following:

Download the pfsense VMware appliance here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/VMwareAppliance
Download and Install:
1. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client
2. VMware vSphere Client
(How to download and install, please follow other guides)

Do not just upload the pfsense*.vmx or vmdk into the vmware datastore, use vCenter Converter instead, otherwise your pfsense-VM won't boot after you create snapshot. And I suppose you have configured the pfsense-VM, and successfully made an Internet connection.

First, we need to install "perl" and "compat6x-i386" onto the system prior VMware Tools installation, just like other linux. But there are many catches through the path... and this guide solved all these and goes straight to the result.

--> press "8" and go to the Shell of pfsense.

We need to update the FTP path for pkg_add command, otherwise the package won't fetch (coz the pfsense FreeBSD is not so updated to FreeBSD FTP)!

setenv PACKAGEROOT "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org"

setenv PACKAGESITE "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-7.4-release/Latest/"

Start installing packages:

pkg_add -v -r perl

pkg_add -v -r compat6x-i386

Go to VMware vsphere client, and start "Install VMware Tools" onto the pfsense-VM, as usual, we need to mount the CD-ROM in order to get the VMware Tools executable.

First, we create some tmp folders first for VMware Tools:

cd /

mkdir tmp2

mkdir tmpp

Mounting the CD-ROM to tmp2:

mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0 /tmp2

cd /tmp2

Copy the VMware Tools to tmpp, then extract the package:

cp vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz /tmpp

cd /tmpp

tar -zxvf vmware-freebsd-tools.tar.gz

cd vmware-tools-distrib/

Then, here is the catch, before executing the installation, we need to link the compat6x files to the proper directory for VMware Tools to find, otherwise it just doesn't work!

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libm.so.4 /lib

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libc.so.6 /lib

ln -s /usr/local/lib/compat/libthr.so.2 /lib

Then, start the installation, make sure you are under /vmware-tools-distrib.

chmod +x vmware-install.pl bin/vmware-config-tools.pl bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

./vmware-install.pl

As usual, keep pressing "Enter", and it should work with "Enjoy" message. If so, start cleaning up and reboot:

cd /

rm -r /tmpp/

rmdir tmpp

shutdown -r now

If you get a "You are under attack" note along the way, it properly is due to the mounted CD-ROM drive, if so, press "Ctrl+Alt+Insert" to reboot the VM and start over. After all these, you should have an "OK" message in VMware vsphere client.

So, enjoy!

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Jayex announced a Linux-based digital signage computer aimed primarily at waiting-room applications. Available with multimedia and client call software, the & Web Media M4& is built around a dual-core Intel Atom D510 clocked at 1.66GHz and offers 1GB of RAM, 250GB of storage, HDMI and VGA ports, as well as Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB connectivity, says the company....

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This guide will walk through the instructions on how to create an API script to create an ftp user in ISPConfig 3. It will give you the knowledge to develop scripts for any function available in ISPConfig 3.

So let's look at the script we will be analyzing.

The first place you start when creating an API script is at the function. The function is the part of the code that adds the ftp user to the databases.

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

As you can see from the code above site_ftp_user_add is the function to add an ftp user. All the functions have names like this so you will never wonder what it does. In order to find out all functions that are available you need to look at /usr/local/ispconfig/interface/lib/classes/remoting.inc.php.

It will look like this:

?//* Add a recordpublic function sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params) {if(!$this->checkPerm($session_id, 'sites_ftp_user_add')) {$this->server->fault('permission_denied', 'You do not have the permissions to access this function.');return false;}return $this->insertQuery('../sites/form/ftp_user.tform.php',$client_id,$params);}

Alright so we know from the line that says,

public function sites_ftp_user_add($session_id…

that there is a function called sites_ftp_user_add.

Let's look at the entire line where the function will reside in our new script.

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

Let's break this line down so you know what you need to change to adjust this to any function.

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

The $domain_id is a variable that you will not need to change as the variable is not used in the execution of the function. 

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

$client-> is a variable you should never change, so do not mess with it.

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

As stated above this is the function and will change depending on the task you wish the script to do.

$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params_ftp);

This section can change depending on the function. From the /usr/local/ispconfig/interface/lib/classes/remoting.inc.php you will see the line

public function sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params)

This is where you will get what needs to go after the function.

Above the function line you will see the creation of the function's array. This is where the information that will be used to create the ftp user is given.

$params = array( 'server_id'=> '1','parent_domain_id'=> $domain_id,'username'=> $myusername,'password'=> $mypassword,'quota_size'=> '-1','active'=> 'y','uid'=> 'web'.$domain_id,'gid'=> 'client'.$client_id,'dir'=> '/var/www/clients/client'.$client_id.'/web'.$domain_id,'quota_files'=> '100','ul_ratio'=> '-1','dl_ratio'=> '200','ul_bandwidth'=> '-1','dl_bandwidth'=> '100',);

This will always start with

$variable = array (

but we do not know what information we need to type in with every function without looking it up.

Going back to /usr/local/ispconfig/interface/lib/classes/remoting.inc.php you will look up the function being used:

?//* Add a recordpublic function sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params) {if(!$this->checkPerm($session_id, 'sites_ftp_user_add')) {$this->server->fault('permission_denied', 'You do not have the permissions to access this function.');return false;}return $this->insertQuery('../sites/form/ftp_user.tform.php',$client_id,$params);}

This is telling up what file has the array information needed. Now let's use our find command:

sudo find / -name ftp_user.tform.php

And open up the document. Should look like:

'password' => array ('datatype'=> 'VARCHAR','formtype'=> 'PASSWORD','encryption' => 'CRYPT','default'=> '','value'=> '','width'=> '30','maxlength'=> '255'),'quota_size' => array ('datatype'=> 'INTEGER','formtype'=> 'TEXT','validators'=> array ( 0 => array ('type'=> 'NOTEMPTY','errmsg'=> 'quota_size_error_empty'),1 => array ('type'=> 'REGEX','regex' => '/^(\-1|[0-9]{1,10})$/','errmsg'=> 'quota_size_error_regex'),

As you can see I am showing two examples that would be transformed to

'password' => 'yourpassword'

and

'quota_size' => 'quota size'

Using everything we have learned so far we can create:

$params = array( 'server_id'=> '1','parent_domain_id'=> $domain_id,'username'=> $myusername,'password'=> $mypassword,'quota_size'=> '-1','active'=> 'y','uid'=> 'web'.$domain_id,'gid'=> 'client'.$client_id,'dir'=> '/var/www/clients/client'.$client_id.'/web'.$domain_id,'quota_files'=> '100','ul_ratio'=> '-1','dl_ratio'=> '200','ul_bandwidth'=> '-1','dl_bandwidth'=> '100',);$domain_id = $client->sites_ftp_user_add($session_id, $client_id, $params);

Not too much farther to go. All we need to do now is have our shell user log in and log out. Make sure you have created a shell user in ISPConfig Control panel by going to the Sites tab and then click Shell User on the left.

Here is the beginning of the script to log into Soap.

$username = 'yourusername';$password = 'yourpassword';/*$soap_location = 'http://localhost:8080/ispconfig3/interface/web/remote/index.php';$soap_uri = 'http://localhost:8080/ispconfig3/interface/web/remote/';*/$soap_location = 'http://localhost:8080/remote/index.php';$soap_uri = 'http://localhost:8080/remote/';

You should put your Shell User where it says "yourusername", and ?the password in "yourpassword." You should also put in your soap?location and uri, but more than likely you will not have to change this.

$client = new SoapClient(null, array('location' => $soap_location, 'uri' => $soap_uri));try { //* Login to the remote server if($session_id = $client->login($username,$password)) { echo 'Logged into remote serversucessfully. The SessionID is '.$session_id.'
';

No changes are needed to this section unless you want to change

echo 'Logged into remote server sucessfully. The SessionID is '.$session_id.'
';

to ouput a different message.

End the script with the following to log out. Nothing has to be changed in the last section.

//* Logoutif($client->logout($session_id)) {echo "FTP Created";}} catch (SoapFault $e) {die('SOAP Error: '.$e->getMessage());echo "Please contact the server administator";}?>;

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The annual Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), sponsored by Computerworld, is underway in San Francisco this week, and, as usual at the conference, Northbridge Venture Partners has released its Future of Open Source survey results. This year's edition of the survey involved more than 20 industry collaborators and more than 450 participants from all over the open source community. We've covered the results of this survey in the past, where it has typically pointed to important new trends such as the integration of open source with cloud computing strategies, and the rise of open source business intelligence software. This year's survey results show especially bright trends for open source in the mobile and cloud computing arenas.

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Well Android fans – we are no longer the underdogs. It turns out that their is a new cool kid on the block. Android phones, according to a very recent Nielsen survey, are now cooler than the iPhone. Nielsen surveyed people, as their business is market research, and the results of people surveyed from January-March of this year, showed that 31% of future smartphone owners plan to buy one running Android, which has tip toed past the once great, once mighty iPhone. While the difference currently is 31% wanting an Android phone and 30% wanting an iPhone for the first time, this shift is undoubtedly part of a larger trend.

More significantly, they discovered that 50% of recent smartphone buyers purchased an Android phones, while only 25% purchased an iPhone. And, of course, Android is maintaining a healthy 37% market share in the US.

The future certainly looks bright! With 1 million daily activations likely to occur daily by 2013, how how big do you think Android will get in a few short years?

Via:  Nielsen

Header Image of Cool Guy

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The second day of Google's developer conference should focus chiefly on Google's browser and Web-programming initiatives. Check here for CNET's live blog on Wednesday.

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HTML5 is the next major version of HTML and is widely considered future of the Web. In particular, HTML5 adds many new syntax features. These include

Today we released Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, and you can find out more about it and download it here.

This has been a ferociously busy cycle and with it we set out with significant, audacious goals. We shipped a new shell, a new media player, significant improvements to Ubuntu One, and we worked hard to deliver all this change and opportunity in a predictable, stable and slick product. I am really proud of the result.

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GNOME 3 is doing away with minimize and Maximize buttons for applications in its user interface. The basic premise being they don't make sense within the current shell design.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't minimize or maximize your applications' window in GNOME 3.

If you want the same functionality as what minimize does, then you should group your applications in different Workspaces or use the Activities overview. And if you need to Maximize your applications, you can double-click on the title bar of the application or you can use the drag-to-snap functionality.

Either way, it is going to be a unique experience for all GNOME 3 users.

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At this week's Berlin LinuxTag 2011, event cooridinator Nils Magnus discusses the increasing professionalism of the open source community.

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GNOME 3.0 has been officially released. Ushering in a radical desktop experience, GNOME 3.0 is all about usability, and it promises a distraction free computing experience for end users.

GNOME 3.0 desktop is designed in such a way that it can run on a variety of modern computing devices including PCs, tablets, cell phones, and what not. The defining technology for GNOME 3.0 user experience is the GNOME Shell.

GNOME Shell takes advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware and introduces a unique user interface that makes computing simple for the lay person.

For example, try moving your mouse pointer to the top left corner of your screen and GNOME Shell puts you into the Activities Overview. The Activities Overview helps you open new applications and also switch between open windows.

In fact, you can easily open any application or manage open app windows from within GNOME 3.0 with no more than two clicks of your mouse. In many cases, a single click of your mouse would suffice.

GNOME 3.0 desktop has an integrated search facility some what similar in functionality to Gnome Do that allows you to launch applications, switch windows, and open recent documents and settings. Why, you can even search Wikipedia and Google from within GNOME 3.0 Activities view.

Integrated Calendar & Task Scheduler

Accessibility settings at your finger tips

The features mentioned above merely scratch the surface of what GNOME 3.0 has to offer. For the full set of features read the GNOME 3.0 release notes.

After trying out a GNOME 3 Live CD, I feel the GNOME team has indeed struck gold. The three years' of planning and development culminating in the GNOME 3 release lives up to its promises of providing a distraction free, productive computing experience to the end user.

You can download Live CDs of GNOME 3 from its website. OpenSUSE and Fedora images have been provided.

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Martin Gräßlin, the lead developer of the KWin compositing window manager in KDE, has just wrote about improvements he would like to see made to this critical free software project for the Linux desktop...

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GNUCash - for those in the dark - is a Free accounting package which you can use to keep track of your net worth, your income, and expenses. It operates under the double entry accounting principle.

If you are not aware of double entry accounting, let me direct you to a wonderful article called "A day in the life of Dave the Dollar" which explains this concept in simple layman terms. In fact, a few years back, it was this very article which persuaded me to start using GNUCash in the first place.

GNUCash team recently released the latest iteration of its flagship product aka version 2.4. GNUCash is a stable and mature product fit to be used not just by home users but also in small businesses. So you won't find that many new features.

However, in version 2.4.0, GNUCash has transitioned to the more advanced WebKit engine to render reports and graphs. In earlier versions, GtkHTML HTML engine was used. Another interesting feature you will find in ver 2.4.0 is the ability to optionally use a database such as Sqlite3, MySQL, or PostgreSQL to store your accounting data instead of the traditional XML based native file format.

The XML-based native file format is adequate for personal finance uses but it does not scale well to the numbers of transactions seen in a typical business setting, and it is not well suited to a multi-user, integrated workflow.

You can download the latest version of GNUCash 2.4.0 from its website. It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. If you are using a rolling release Linux distribution (such as PCLinuxOS), you can install it directly from its repository.

I am curious, do you use an accounting software to keep your accounts ? If yes, which do you prefer ?

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Mozilla employe and JavaScript Brendan Eich is giving a surprise talk at Node.js today on the subject of using Mozilla's Spidermonkey JavaScript engine in Node.js, instead of Google's V8.

The Spidermonkey/Node.js project has been known for a while now.

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elLoka Techsolutions Pvt Ltd a Hyderabad based product design and manufacturing company that delivers Ultra Low Cost Computer Platforms(ULCCP), has come up with a palm-sized computer that is very cheap and consumes very little power.

The computer is on display at the Rambagh SMS Convention center in Jaipur, Rajasthan where a three-day Commonwealth and information technology meet is on.

Targeted at home users, and people in Indian villages who are plagued by intermittent power failures, this computer can effectively run on Solar power and is eco-friendly.

The company claims this computer known by its acronym GreCo which stands for "Green Computer" consumes only 5W power and it weighs a mere 135 gms. It is being marketed in India for a price of Rs 5000 (approx USD 100).

At this price point, it comes with a power adapter and AV cable which you can connect to an LCD screen or to your TV. Optionally, at additional cost, you also get a keyboard and mouse.

The technical specifications of GreCo are as follows -
It has 4 USB portsOne 10/100 Ethernet RJ45 connectorVGA & AV OutMicrophone and Headphone connectors2 LEDs indicating Power & StatusPower Supply - 12 V AC/DC AdapterAn on-board memory (RAM) of 256MB and 1 GB disk space.
It runs on a customized OS named HomeOS which the company claims is built on top of a Linux base. Some what similar to Google Android which also runs on a Linux kernel.

The OS comes pre-loaded with numerous open source software which caters to the typical home users need. OpenOffice.org is installed, so is GIMP, MPlayer for listening to music and watching movies, Firefox, Flash player - so you can watch YouTube videos, Email client, Pidgin Chat client, Image viewers and more.

Watch the following video that showcases the power of this palm sized computer.

[Source : Times of India]

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Android: SSH Tunnel is free, open source, and provides one-click SSH tunneling for the entire system or individual apps. The app's official purpose is to allow users in China to bypass what's been called "the Great Firewall," but it can be used by anyone who'd like to ensure private browsing. Comments (0)
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The big news today - as far as cellular world should be concerned, is the strategic partnership between Nokia and Microsoft to produce smart phones running Windows 7. Nokia says it will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smart phone strategy. Meaning, Symbian OS is going to be relegated to history. And MeeGo project on Nokia smart phones would be in limbo.

Thinking back, my first cell phone was a Nokia. At that time, Nokia was a dominant player in the Indian cell phone market. However, in the years that followed, Samsung and many other players have succeeded in grabbing a share of the pie (obviously at Nokia's expense).

So much so that, in India at present, if you go to any mobile shop to buy a cell phone, chances are you will be deluged with Samsung devices and not Nokia's. Currently, even I use a Samsung cell phone (though not a smart one). Verily Samsung offers more variety to its customers than Nokia ever has.

In the future, it is a given that mobile devices are going to permeate our lives even more. And smart phones are going to replace their dumb counterparts. Be that as it may, one of the best ways for Nokia to reclaim its market share is through innovation - by rolling out smart phones powered by its own homegrown OS. MeeGo, which is being developed on a Linux kernel shows a lot of promise. For one, there won't be a dearth of applications on MeeGo as most applications that run on Linux will run on MeeGo as well.

Sleeping with Microsoft is not going to turn Nokia's fortunes for the better any more than if it were to embrace an open source OS to power its smart phones.

For instance,
Windows OS is closed source and proprietary.It entails paying a royalty to Microsoft. And that additional cost will be transferred to the customer. Nokia will be subjugated to play a lesser role in the smart phone arena - the terms being dictated by Microsoft.And Nokia risks alienating its customers who might move to embrace products from its competitors which are powered by an open source OS.
Not surprisingly, this official announcement by Nokia and Microsoft has invited widespread criticism as indicated by over 460 comments made there.

On a personal level, I was looking forward to buying a MeeGo powered Nokia cell phone when it was released. I guess my wait is going to be futile.

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Kontron announced a PCI/104-Express SBC (single board computer) with Intel's single-core Atom D425 or dual-core D525. The Microspace MSM-LP includes up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, one IDE port and two SATA ports, LVDS and VGA video, four serial ports, six USB 2.0 ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports, the company says....

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This is a concise guide that provides some details about a possible Android and IOS contender - MeeGo. Notwithstanding the recent setbacks it faced in relation to Nokia, MeeGo project is moving forward at a steady pace. And it might just be possible that we could,in the near future, start seeing increasing number of devices (not just cell phones) powered by MeeGo.

MeeGo is an open source operating system project for mobile devices, hosted by the Linux Foundation - a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux.

MeeGo will run on multiple types of devices ranging from cell phones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment, TVs, and so on. It is powered by Linux.

The following Youtube video provides a glimpse of the MeeGo user interface.

If you are a developer and wish to develop applications for MeeGo you should first download the MeeGo SDK suite. It consists of the MeeGo OS, Emulator, GNU Toolchain and so on. The SDK is available for Windows and Linux.

Once you have developed your app, you should submit it to the Intel Atom Developer program. Your application if it passes the Intel guidelines, will be showcased at the Intel AppUp Center where you can earn revenue by selling your app.

Intel is pulling all stops to attract developers to MeeGo. This include a comprehensive collection of information and support provided in the form of Videos, Wikis, Forums, Mailing lists, Blogs, et al.

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Pinta, a "lightweight" open source raster image editor, turned 1.0 on April 27, offering Linux users another choice for simple image editing. Pinta is intended to be a clone of Paint.NET, the Windows-only raster editor written in .NET. As such, it uses Mono under the hood, but it gains the ability to run equally well on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. Is it a replacement for GIMP or Krita? That depends on what you need to do.

The Pinta Web site hosts downloadable packages. At the moment, the 1.0 offerings are provided as a tar archive for Linux, and ready-to-install binaries for Windows and Mac OS X. Also linked in are Mono and GTK+ packages for the proprietary OSes, and a link to the source code repository on Github.

The 1.0 release is new enough that your Linux distribution is not likely to have packages yet; in that case you can grab the tar archive. The compilation process is a straightforward ./autogen.sh; make; sudo make install 3-step shuffle. Pinta is GTK+-based, so it requires at least a portion of the GNOME stack to be installed, but it should run equally well on GNOME, KDE, and other desktop environments. You will need the Mono runtime version 2.8 or later.

Pinta builds on top of an older release of Paint.NET, from back when the latter program was available under the MIT/X free software license. Paint.NET's author decided to take it down a proprietary path about three years ago, and since then Pinta has been on its own trajectory. The broad goal remains essentially unchanged, however: a raster graphics editor that is simple to use, while still providing the essential features a casual user would want from a heavyweight tool like GIMP, Krita, or Photoshop.

What you get with Pinta is indeed a subset of what you will find in GIMP. Drawing tools, just not as many of them. Filters and effects, but a smaller collection. Layers and image adjustments, but not every feature. For a lot of people, of course, that is perfectly fine. The only question is how to determine which group you fit into.

On the tool front, Pinta offers freehand paintbrush and pencil tools, straight-line and geometric primitives (ellipse, rectangle, and rounded rectangle), gradient and bucket fill, eraser, and rubber-stamp "clone." There are also two non-standard tools (meaning only that most painting apps do not feature them): "recolor" and "freeform shape." The recolor tool lets you paint over the canvas with a hue-shift effect rather than creating new brush strokes as you would with the paintbrush tool. The tool's "tolerance" slider allows you to customize what pixels are affected (although its exact behavior requires a little experimentation; it seems to be doing what I would call "darken-only" painting, but this is not explained in the tooltips).

The freeform shape tool lets you draw a closed figure by freehanding as much of its outline as you like, with the app automatically closing the curve with a straight line from your stopping point back to your starting point. You could essentially do the same thing with the paintbrush followed by the straight line tool. What's more interesting is that Pinta offers this same behavior in its lasso selection tool; it beats the old-fashioned auto-shape-closing behavior because you can see the entire outline of the selection as you draw.

The other selection and navigation tools are pretty standard fare: rectangles, ellipses, and a "magic wand" for selecting contiguous colors. The text tool offer basic font, size, weight, and alignment choices. In each case, the app places the tool options on a menu bar across the top of the canvas; this is a bit handier than GIMP's below-the-toolbox palette, and is similar to what Krita offers.

Pinta keeps a color palette below the toolbox, a layers palette on the right-hand size of the canvas, and an undo history beneath the layers. One of the nicest features of Pinta is that it always preserves a complete undo history for the file, rather than limiting you to a fixed number of stored undos (which you can rapidly run out of when making a lot of adjustments).

Speaking of adjustments, Pinta offers basic photographic adjustments, through levels, curves, hue/saturation, and brightness/contrast controls. Those essential features support what most people need in order to breathe life into a weak photographic image. It appears that Pinta only supports RGB images, although I could not find documentation to that effect. In any event, there doesn't appear to be tools for switching images between RGB, RGBA, gray-scale, and indexed color.

The Effects menu hosts a tableau of about 30 image filters, ranging from simple blurs to artistic effects (such as "ink sketch" or "oil painting"), plus various distortions, edge-detection, and other fun stuff. Most are configurable through a pop-up dialog, but some run immediately without the chance to adjust any filter settings. There are a handful of photo-retouching effects, such as red-eye removal, and a few special effects are tucked away in other places in the menu structure (such as sepia-toning, which lives in the Adjustments menu).

You can also resize the canvas (by scaling it or adding extra space), do simple rotations and flips, and reorder and duplicate layers. At output time, you can save your work in BMP, ICO, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, TGA, or OpenRaster format.

It would be tempting to say something simple like "Do you find GIMP and Krita confusing? Then use Pinta!" But you have to look more closely at what each application offers to really know if it meets your needs.

Sure, Pinta 1.0 leaves out tools and features that non-professionals probably won't miss, such as masks, paths, pressure-sensitivity, or "darkroom" style controls (dodge, burn, smudge, etc.). But there are some features I was surprised to find left off in this release, starting with brush shapes. There aren't any; a solid circle of variable radius is the only choice. My impression is that casual users perform a couple of different activities with shaped brushes: stamping images as decorative elements, and painting out objects. For the first, you need a selection of pre-made shaped brushes, and for the second, you need brushes with "soft" or blurry edges.

I was also concerned by the limited choice of transformations available. One of the most common casual operations is pasting one image into another (think "kitteh" superimposed over, well, almost anything). You can paste an image into Pinta as a new layer, but you can't scale it. You also cannot really blend layers (although you can set the opacity of each layer, but the option is only available by opening the Layer Properties dialog from the Layers menu), and you cannot edit text after it has been pasted on the canvas.

There are a couple of other minor nitpicks that I would call out if Pinta was interested in being a high-end painting application (such as the gradient tool, which doesn't offer much control), but I picked out the above examples because I think they might actually affect a new user's ability to get stuff done. Your mileage may vary, of course, and it depends in large part on your expectations.

All in all, what you get with Pinta is a very capable, but limited-in-scope, set of image editing tools. If your primary concern is moving up from the highly-restrictive sliders in a dedicated photo manager like F-Spot, you'll be pleased, particularly with the Effects available. But if you're needing to combine images or make annotations on top of a photo or diagram, you may be frustrated once or twice.

I almost mentioned another issue in the previous section, which was that I found the recolor tool difficult to figure out. At first, I chalked that up to it being a different approach than I am used to in GIMP and Krita, but then it hit me: the real source of the trouble is that there is no documentation. At all. That's something that the Pinta project needs to fix, and soon. The developers have done an excellent job preparing the application in more than 40 languages — heck, I'm not even sure I could name 40 languages, without looking. It's time to rally those contributors into helping create a good manual to accompany the app.

On the whole, Pinta 1.0 lives up to its "Painting. Simple." mantra. I don't want anyone to take my assessment of the missing features to mean disappointment in what Pinta is or what it does; it is simply a matter of knowing your tools. Developer Jonathan Pobst has already commented on the Pinta mailing list that he is gearing up for the next release cycle, gathering requirements and wishlist items, so it's a safe bet many of the missing pieces in 1.0 will hit 1.x or 2.0 before too long.

In the meantime, Pinta is even worth a look if you're an experienced designer more comfortable in Krita and GIMP, because there are nice touches all around the UI. I love the simple +/- brush size adjustment buttons; they beat clicking and dragging a reduced-size brush silhouette. Likewise, it's great that you can grab a selection outline with one arrow-tool and move only the outline — other apps hide that functionality behind modifier keys. And do I even need to say anything about unlimited undo history?

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Emacs is a very powerful text editor used by geeks the world over. Now I am not trying to fuel a Emacs vs Vi war but mastering Emacs editor will definitely make you more productive and save time, compared to doing the same tasks using a more common text editor. What is more, Emacs is available cross platform which means, no matter which operating system you use, a native version of Emacs is available for your OS.

However, mastering the use of Emacs involves a learning curve. At the least, you need to be aware of a few terminologies used, and must be prepared to change your mind set as far as text editing is concerned.

Ben Simon has put together a nice compilation of the 11 things a potential Emacs user should be aware of before he starts using the editor.

So without further ado, the following are the 11 Emacs Concepts that a newbie should master.
Killing and YankingBuffer switchingDynamic AbbreviationsParenthesis ModesSpell CheckingUndoNarrowingIncremental SearchKeyboard MacrosDired Mode, and Version ControlAs an aside, did you know that Emacs has built-in games ? Well, I have played Tetris in Emacs. You can accomplish so much using Emacs that some die-hard fans of Emacs call it an operating system.

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Google will not be making the Honeycomb source code available to the general public until after it has released its replacement, Ice Cream Sandwich

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Emacs is a very powerful text editor used by geeks the world over. Now I am not trying to fuel a Emacs vs Vi war but mastering Emacs editor will definitely make you more productive and save time, compared to doing the same tasks using a more common text editor. What is more, Emacs is available cross platform which means, no matter which operating system you use, a native version of Emacs is available for your OS.

However, mastering the use of Emacs involves a learning curve. At the least, you need to be aware of a few terminologies used, and must be prepared to change your mind set as far as text editing is concerned.

Ben Simon has put together a nice compilation of the 11 things a potential Emacs user should be aware of before he starts using the editor.

So without further ado, the following are the 11 Emacs Concepts that a newbie should master.
Killing and YankingBuffer switchingDynamic AbbreviationsParenthesis ModesSpell CheckingUndoNarrowingIncremental SearchKeyboard MacrosDired Mode, and Version ControlAs an aside, did you know that Emacs has built-in games ? Well, I have played Tetris in Emacs. You can accomplish so much using Emacs that some die-hard fans of Emacs call it an operating system.

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Wednesday, 04 May 2011 00:00 LWN

KDE e.V. has announced the availability of its report (PDF) for the fourth quarter of 2010. The report looks at things that happened in KDE, the supporting members, recaps from various gatherings, and includes a look at the project's finances.

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IN HOSTING THE OLD:

1. Log into CPanel - File Manager - your Folder Domain
2. Give the check folder wp-content
3. click the Compress button in the top
4. Name your own preferences, or simply your domain name only
5. Give the check file compress
6. Click the button ownload and save the results on your hard drive
7. Log into CPanel - Backups
8. Click the name of your WordPress database used to download the database.
9. If you do not know, then go back to File Manager and edit the file wp-config.php. The name of the database is in the file.
10. Save the downloaded database
Verify that the download is not corrupt. The trick, try opening the file download and extract. If successful then it sip.

MANAGE IN DOMAIN
Change the NS domain hosting go to a new hosting. I think its ok .. could all change domain name servers in cpanel
NEW IN HOSTING:

1. Put your Add-On Domains in CPanel
2. Go to the Fantastico menu and the Install WordPress as usual. The contents of origin from her later on we will change all. When the installation process, will usually show the name of the database. Remember his name
3. Login to the wp-admin and upgrade to latest version
4. Log into CPanel - File Manager
5. Upload file wp-content that was downloaded in compressed form
6. Delete the folder wp-content created by fantastico
7. Extract the file you just uploaded
8. Log into CPanel - PHPMyAdmin
9. Log into your new WordPress database.
10. Check the boxes for all tables and then click the cross (drop)
11. Select Yes when the confirmation.
12. Click the Import Menu
13. Then select the database file you have downloaded.


done .. the plugin file and the posting was right again .. .. it has not moved when the web hosting

New! Click the words above to view alternate translations. Dismiss

New switching, security and management platforms roll out from HP.

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Well the anticipation had been building for months, and now Natty Narwhal is here at last. Rare is the Linux geek today who doesn't know exactly what a narwhal looks like; few have any trouble rattling off a definition of the word "natty" in rapid fire. We've all been watching, waiting and thinking about this new Ubuntu release, and now the thing itself is at our fingertips. Do we love it? Well, many of us do, it seems. Then again, many of us aren't so sure. The new Unity interface, in particular, has created more than a few furrowed brows.

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The Debian Project is happy to announce that it will be again represented at the LinuxTag event in Berlin, Germany, this year. At the booth members of the project will be available for questions and discussions.

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E-con Systems announced an Android board support package (BSP) for its Marvell PXA300-based eSOM300 module and related Alioth baseboard reference platform. The company says it added to Android's hardware abstraction layers with blocks that support non-mobile, industrial-focused peripherals including RS232/RS485, CAN, GPIO, ADC, and various sensors....

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Android users on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile no longer have access to some apps that allow consumers to use their smartphones as broadband modems for free access to the Internet.

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The European justice commissioner plans to propose tougher rules on breaches of privacy, setting standards that could be followed in the United States.

Read more at New York Times

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The Linux Foundation has confirmed the keynote speakers for LinuxCon Japan 2011 and announced that it will donate program funds to the relief efforts to help those affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan

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LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on an Ubuntu 11.04 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.

Read more at HowtoForge

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AMD's John Bridgman has now confirmed that they have hired two open-source developers. These two new development hires was done previous to the announcement a few days ago that they are still looking for another open-source developer to work on their open-source Linux (kernel DRM, Mesa / Gallium3D, DDX) stack for Radeon graphics hardware...

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The LibreOffice Project announced beta 5 of the upcoming 3.4 release today. The project is also announcing a change in its announcement strategy — the -announce list will only be used for final and stable releases.

As part of the announcement, Italo Vignoli mentioned that there seems to be some confusion about the LibreOffice scheduling and development process, and selecting the "right" release of LibreOffice. LibreOffice is on a "time based release model" and the project is avoiding schedule slips. He also encouraged users to select the "right release of LibreOffice for each situation."

Conservative users who want very stable releases are encouraged to choose a commercially supported version, or at least wait for a point release that has all the bugs shaken out. Users who are helping with development, testing, or just want to experience the "bleeding edge," are encouraged to run 3.4.0 when released or even the betas and nightly releases.

Users that still want to hear about the betas and such should subscribe to the projects and/or development lists.

For the latest beta, see the pre-releases page on the LibreOffice site. Debian packages and RPMs for x86 and AMD64 Linux systems are available, as well as Windows and Mac OS X binaries.

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French programmer Fabrice Bellard has written a PC emulator in JavaScript. It is able to run a mini Linux system within a browser

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Waterbear is a Scratch-like visual programming language for JavaScript. It was created by Dethe Elza, who gave a presentation on the project today at JSConf in Portland, OR. Waterbear brings the concepts of kid-friendly, educational programming languages, such as Logo and Scratch, to the modern, browser-oriented computer. Users can create programs by snapping together blocks.

Unlike Scratch, you can view the code generated by Waterbear.

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Monday, 09 May 2011 00:00 The H

AMD's Embedded Solutions has announced a roadmap for its future use of coreboot, the open source BIOS, and is planning coreboot support "for all future products on the roadmap"

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We’ve got excellent news! We’ve received many excellent submissions for our Google Summer of Code application and Google has given us 16 slots. This means that 16 eager students have been selected and will start working with their mentors on an awesome openSUSE project!

Read more at openSUSE News

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This tutorial explains how you can integrate ClamAV into PureFTPd for virus scanning on a Fedora 14 system. In the end, whenever a file gets uploaded through PureFTPd, ClamAV will check the file and delete it if it is malware.

Read more at HowtoForge

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Recognizing that its browser-based operating system is a major departure, Google wants Chromebook customers to be happy more than to be numerous.

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The ISPConfig Monitor App is for all servers, not only for servers running ISPConfig. With the ISPConfig Monitor App, you can check your server status and find out if all services are running as expected. You can check TCP and UDP ports and ping your servers. In addition to that you can use this app to request details from servers that have ISPConfig installed (please note that the minimum installed ISPConfig 3 version with support for the ISPConfig Monitor App is 3.0.3.3!); these details include everything you know from the Monitor module in the ISPConfig Control Panel (e.g. services, mail and system logs, mail queue, CPU and memory info, disk usage, quota, OS details, RKHunter log, etc.), and of course, as ISPConfig is multiserver-capable, you can check all servers that are controlled from your ISPConfig master server.

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